How can three learners work with one pencil to draw an accurate map of the school grounds?
A multi-age Grades 1/2/3 classroom had been taking regular walks within the school grounds as part of a nature-based observational learning practice. As learners walked, they noticed not only the features they used regularly such as the play structure or the soccer fields, but also patches of trees or small gardens. The learners were forming a relationship of knowing with their school ground—knowing what is in it, where things are located, rough distances between features, and so on. As they were learning about their school ground, they were also focusing on maps and legends as part of their social studies learning. They had been reading the book Where We Live: Mapping Neighborhoods Around the Globe by Margriet Ruurs, which depicts simple maps of neighbourhoods around the world that use legends to represent features that were important to the author/illustrator of the map. It was suggested by Mrs. M that the learners create maps of the school ground that show five to ten important features of the schoolyard.
Learners were split up into random groupings of three and told they were to receive one large piece of paper and one pencil for the group to share. Before beginning, the learners and Mrs. M co-created a visual of what collaborating as a group did and did not look like, sound like, or feel like. This anchor chart included statements such as “Collaboration IS when you are encouraging all team members to help,” and “Collaboration IS NOT when you do all the work yourself or refuse to help,” or “Collaboration IS when you listen to everyone’s ideas and talk about them,” and “Collaboration IS NOT when you only want your idea listened to.” This visual served as an excellent anchor for learners to come back to after work periods to reflect on their own personal work within collaborative situations that day, and this exercise allowed time for self-evaluation.
Before the learners began, there were also a few rules that needed to be reviewed for this small group project. They needed to use all five minutes of planning time to discuss possibilities for their map, hearing all opinions and trying to include all ideas or come to a compromise. Learners were asked to take turns with the pencil, encourage each other along the way, and come to an agreement with the group before anything was added or taken away (erased) from the map.
First, the learners needed to have a planning discussion in which they decided important details that would come up during their project work, such as the following: “What would be represented on their map?” “What was important to them that needed to be one of the five to ten features?” “How large or small would items need to be?” “How far apart would these need to be?” “What orientation should the paper be?”
As discussions continued, learners needed to seek out and understand diverse perspectives, voices, and ideas from other group members in order to illustrate all ideas and co-construct their representation of the school grounds. They found that others remembered or valued school ground items that they personally deemed unimportant. Each map ended up being co-constructed to represent the perspectives of all group members in a collaborative way!
Ruurs, Margriet. Where We Live: Mapping Neighborhoods Around the Globe. Illustrated by Wenjia Tang, Kids Can Press, 2022.
